According to a research team from the famous Stanford Medical School in the US, the type of depression they have just identified accounts for up to 27% of actual depressed patients and treatment with conventional antidepressants is ineffective for this group.
Trouble at work is a prominent sign of this new form of depression (Illustration photo from the Internet)
Depressed patients are often described as people who often appear sad, melancholy, socially withdrawn, have a mentality of giving up, and even have ideas and behaviors of self-harm.
But the type of depression they describe in their paper published in JAMA Network Open — "labeled cognitive biologic" — is characterized by an inability to plan tasks, difficulty exercising self-control, difficulty concentrating and resisting distractions, difficulty inhibiting inappropriate behaviors, insomnia, and a slow perception of events.
These signs seem to suggest distraction and incompetence at work rather than depression.
However, they are actually sick, with reduced activity between the two regions responsible for the aforementioned tasks.
Because of this particular way of acting, common antidepressants - which usually target serotonin, a neurotransmitter that plays an important role in regulating memory, sleep, digestion, mood, etc. - will not be effective for patients with this new form of depression.
Instead, they need to use other treatments to reduce symptoms and restore social and occupational skills.
The findings come from a study of more than 1,000 adults diagnosed with major depressive disorder who were treated with a range of common medications for eight weeks, had their symptoms recorded and had functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of their brains.
27% of patients with a strange form of depression show reduced activity in several distinct brain regions, which often affects cognitive activities, making it difficult to control certain thoughts and actions according to standards.
Researchers hope this discovery will open the way for more accurate classification and treatment of patients with depression, because this is always a challenging disease for medicine.
Source
Comment (0)